Identity takes centre stage, as publishers tackle news content monetisation and AI implementation holdups

Welcome to the June Spotlight, your monthly deep dive into the latest developments shaping the future of adtech and digital marketing.

The World Cup is in full swing, and the creative and adtech industry descended once again on the South of France for Cannes Lions. Core discussions this month continue to revolve around the independence of identity solutions, publishers’ capacity to harness some of the media landscape’s greatest assets, and the obstacles appearing on the road to AI implementation.

An ongoing identity crisis

The ripple effect from Publicis’ acquisition of LiveRamp keeps spreading, and looks set to continue throughout the Cannes Lions festival, according to a Digiday report. The piece highlights the questions being asked about whether the deal undermines long-standing neutrality in contracts. It also digs into the deeper issues around how fundamental identity is as a foundation layer across various digital ecosystems. The news has already spurred a number of different launches this week from within adtech that take differing approaches to the identity question. But the fundamental issue still remains – independently verified and trusted identity solutions are paramount as we move further past the era of the tracking cookie.

You can find out more on our take on the acquisition story here. And if you want to explore alternatives to identity solutions, you can find out more about our independent, telco-backed solution on our website.

Publishers wrestle with monetising the news content

Beyond the digital identity layer, this month has also seen a number of initiatives exploring the publisher monetisation conundrum: namely the longstanding issue of making the most of primary ad real estate next to news content. UK marketing body Newsworks is currently running its Blocklisted campaign highlighting the gulf between reader appetite for ‘hard’ news and advertiser aversion to brand safety concerns. It’s an issue which the Press Gazette reports has only accelerated since the pandemic. One of the most commonly cited examples of blocklist ineffectiveness is the number of sporting articles which are screened for the use of terms such as “shootout” and “attack”. We expect this to crop up again as an issue as the World Cup gets fully underway as a major global event.

Most importantly, however, the issue underlines for us how squeezed publishers are on all fronts when it comes to making the most of their premium inventory. And how brands are sometimes more concerned with potential (if unfounded) concerns about brand damage than they might be when connecting to real, valuable and deeply engaged readers.

AI rollouts hitting operational speedbumps

We’ve seen multiple studies this month highlighting the growing pains for creative industry adoption of AI en masse, no matter how keen the interest. One piece underlines that AI assistance is speedy but hits log-jams of approval when suggestions meet human hands. Another acknowledges that LLM adoption will not create new roles, while at the same time streamlining old ones. A third explains how brand bias is showing up in AI commerce recommendations. There has been a general acknowledgement this month that increasing automation adoption brings a series of significant teething troubles.

For us, one of the more worrying of these is AI creative driving a new breed of Made For Advertising sites. If AI is driving an erosion of media budgets — already facing challenges on so many other fronts — and undermining the value of genuine inventory in the marketplace it should be a wake-up call for the industry. It highlights a widening gap between tech deployment and human oversight — begging the question: is the industry moving too quickly to notice how its premium structures are being eroded? This is a crucial space to watch, and we’ll be tracking it closely in the coming months.

Research highlights a human-shaped privacy risk

Consumers may be increasingly privacy aware. But in some respects, they can be their own worst enemy, as a new study has revealed. Researchers at ETH Zurich found that users are prone to oversharing highly sensitive PII with websites that don’t need them. Many struggle to understand complex disclosure requests. Around a fifth would share their official ID with news sites.

As identity systems shift from cookies to formal digital credentials, user behaviour will always be the weakest link. That’s why advertisers and publishers need more effective audience verification and activation mechanisms which keep users anonymous. A privacy-safe option which doesn’t compromise on accuracy is the best way to mitigate risk, build trust and improve efficiency.

European publishers hit back at Google in £550m legal action

Over 20 European news publishers are seeking £550m in damages relating to Google’s adtech monopoly abuses. The tech giant was fined €2.95bn (£2.55bn) last year by the European Commission for abusing its dominant position in the industry. The publishers argue that they would have earned much more ad revenue over the years had Google not created a less competitive market.

In truth, this is about more than one court case. It’s about the frustration publishers feel about a system which is letting them down. About the structural imbalance in the ad ecosystem which too often leaves publishers in the dark about how value is distributed.  Having access to rich, privacy-compliant audience signals would help to correct that imbalance. In the end, new identity infrastructure could be worth a lot more to publishers in the long term than a court-mandated payout.

More from Novatiq

If you are looking for further thought leadership on how to embrace telco-verified IDs and ensure your ad spend is reaching 100% verified human users rather than automated bots, swing by our website. Our latest commentary on moving past the “attention trap” to build genuine, consent-based audience verification is now available on our blog.